Chasing Unicorns

After first qualifying for the Boston Marathon in October 2008, I, probably like many first-time qualifiers, spent the next 18 months obsessively checking the BAA’s website, double-double checking matters such as the date and starting time of registration, the date of the race, the mandatory events in related to the race, and about any other thing there was to obsess about that was in any way associated with the race. Thanks to the numerous viewings and re-viewings of the information I firmly committed the dates and times and locations to memory, but there was also an image that became fixed in my memory: a unicorn (Fixed to the point that a couple nights before my first Boston Marathon I had a nightmare in which I was running the race being chased by the BAA unicorn which was trying to impale me upon its horn. Also, please immediately stop psychoanalyzing me.). The BAA’s unicorn logo was splashed all over the organization’s website, and I would come to find out it was splashed all over the Boston Marathon program, expo, and even the race itself. For a race held in such high esteem, the image seemed confusingly somewhat childish, and to a male, even girlish, and so I had to know: why a unicorn?

According to popular belief, it was chosen due to its place in mythology as a figure which can be pursued, but never caught. However, that BAA says it was probably taken from the coat of arms of one of its members, and has remained as a symbol of striving for athletic excellence. However, it’s always been the first ideal that has remained in me, the worthy pursuit of an end that can never be reached. At first, it seemed such a fitting symbol for those who dreamed of running the marathon and never had, who’ve toiled for years chasing the elusive BQ. But the more I saw the insignia, and the more I obsessed with the Boston Marathon, the more perfect the symbolism became to me, a symbol for the physical excellence for which we strive as runners, the pursuit of not being best, but better. Nothing could better symbolize our own fleeting excellence than the unicorn, the excellence that we catch a glimpse of for a moment, so close to our physical potential, only to vanish in the next instant. No matter how well the race is run, we’re inherently always short of perfection. No matter how great the performance, our pride is always balanced with the knowledge that somewhere out there is another second. Somewhere in our training, our diet, our race plan, the execution of the race plan, there’s another second. And when the race is finished, either the enthusiasm of our success or the sting of our failure begs us to ask where that second might be, and how we can get it? But even if we are diligent enough, fortunate enough to pinpoint its exact location, where does the drive come from to make the attempt to capture that second?

Prior to this year’s Boston Marathon, I did something I’d never done before any marathon: publicly stated my goal. Goals are something I’ve always kept close to the heart, not wanting the opinion of other to dissuade what I know I am, what I know I can become. But thanks to an article in a local newspaper, this year my goal was very public, available for the world to see. And this is where I realized my motivation to capture that second: the chasing of an entirely different unicorn.

Of failure I was not afraid. I’ve obviously failed on many occasions in running and in life. To return home to people who knew I fell short of that goal, having to explain over and again (to people who really don’t understand) what wrong, having people I didn’t know think I was some sort of fraud, these things didn’t scare me; I found nothing to increase the rate of improvement like a tremendous failure. But I was worried that one person would see. That she would wake up to read the paper the morning after Patriots’ Day and see me fall inexplicably short of that goal and think less of me, that I lacked the mettle it took to be a runner, to be a man.

“She” is a girl I see around from time to time. She’s pretty and friendly, and although I’ve never actually seen it, I’m quite certain she has perfect penmanship. She's simply lovely. We converse from time to time, though always brief, mostly because I try to escape before I run out of things to say and she realizes (if she already doesn’t) that I’m really rather dull or before I realize she may indeed be imperfect. I definitely knew she was aware I was running Boston, but very uncertain as to whether she actually cared, quite certain she was unaware that I cared if she cared, and absolutely unsure if she would care that I cared if she cared. When my personal standard of success became public record available to her, I became acutely aware of the depth of my concern. I realized that during the lonely miles I ran early in the mornings or late at night, the fictitious conversations I would have to pass the time were with her. When I needed to dig deeper during a speed workout or tempo run to hit a goal time, it wasn’t fear of the pains of failure that helped me to dig, it was the fear of her knowing about my failure. I would run through the streets hoping for the coincidence that she’d be driving down the same street, and would be impressed by my commitment and resolve during the cold winter months, or perhaps by the ease or strength with which I ran. It was as if my goal was as much about running well as it was to win her admiration in doing so.

When I crossed the line in exactly my goal time, there was just as much joy as relief. Hopeful she’d find out, optimistic she could view me a success, confident she at least wouldn’t view me as a failure. In retrospect, it is such a bizarre dichotomy to think how unaware she was that the infrastructure of my determination was the desire for her approval, that her admiration was really the unicorn I saw in the distance, chasing, hoping to catch. When it would have been easier to stay in bed or stay inside, or to give in the urge to slow down or have another cookie, the sight of her potential affection on the horizon kept me focused, made a goal time written in ink a reality on pavement. It was chasing that unicorn that helped me to for a day to catch a glimpse of the unicorn that is athletic excellence, for a day to feel so close to that excellence that I could touch it. And while it is impossible to ever fully grasp the unicorn that is athletic excellence, I can be hopeful that a day will come when I can be certain that I’ve earned her admiration. That one day I will cross a finish line, look up, reach out, and tangibly grab a hold of her. The day I will have finally caught a unicorn. But after years of living in world knowing that what I'm chasing can never be caught, one question remains: what the heck do I do when I catch her?

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